


Icy Ground

by thesometimeswarrior



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Disabled Character, Injury Recovery, Post-Canon, Post-Series, aftermath of war, internalized ableism, toxic masculinity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 17:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12086199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesometimeswarrior/pseuds/thesometimeswarrior
Summary: "The gangway is lowered, and Pakku’s knuckles are white with how tightly he grips the cane. With effort, he rises, breathes several times until his breath no longer shakes, straightens his back as much as he is able and raises his chin, before stepping forward and down onto the gangway.  Each step is deliberate, careful, just as he has practiced.(Despite the weeks of practice, his right leg still drags behind him like dead weight.)Kanna is there, waiting, on the shore, her lip turned up just slightly, the closest thing to a smile that Pakku has ever seen from her. He cannot quite bring himself to meet her eyes."Pakku doesn't return from liberating Ba Sing Se unscathed.





	Icy Ground

**Author's Note:**

> This started as something of a companion piece to my fic _Promises,_ building on some ideas I came up with in my other piece _Learning Partners_ (though those are by no means required reading to understand this one) but I think evolved into something other than that. Enjoy!

When they arrive in the Southern Water Tribe, some of the crew offer to help him off the ship, but he shakes his head, grips his cane tightly, and they oblige him. Were he a different sort of man, they might insist— _Master, you know how serious your injuries are, you know walking is difficult for you, let us help_ or _Master, you liberated Ba Sing Se, you’re a hero, it’s the least we can do._ But he is the most renown Waterbending teacher in the world, has had a lifetime of practice disarming rebellious students, and he looks at these young people in just the same way as he would with such a student, his eyebrow cocked dangerously on his forehead. And the crew is slightly afraid of him. They think he’s a hero. They listen.

(They’re _wrong_ , he’s not a hero, but that isn’t the point, now.)

The gangway is lowered, and Pakku’s knuckles are white with how tightly he grips the cane. With effort, he rises, breathes several times until his breath no longer shakes, straightens his back as much as he is able and raises his chin, before stepping forward and down onto the gangway. Each step is deliberate, careful, just as he has practiced. 

(Despite the weeks of practice, his right leg still drags behind him like dead weight.)

Kanna is there, waiting, on the shore, her lip turned up just slightly, the closest thing to a smile that Pakku has ever seen from her. He cannot quite bring himself to meet her eyes.

When he steps onto shore bad-leg-and-cane first, he is instantly struck with the fact that he committed a monstrous oversight: Growing up in the North Pole, ice was normal ground, and walking on it was commonplace. It has never occurred to him that to walk on ice is different than to walk on solid ground—it has never been an issue for him before. But for the past two months, as with Yugoda’s help he retrained himself to walk in light of the deep burn on his leg and the pain it causes, he was in Ba Sing Se. Walking—or, more accurately, _hobbling_ —only on wooden floors and then solid earth, where his cane had traction. But now his cane slips, and without its support, Pakku feels himself slide forward with it. He is going to fall flat on his face in the snow, in front of Kanna, in front of all the crew, and in front of all of these Southern Watertribesmen who have gathered to greet him…

A hand grips his arm firmly, keeping him upright. He tries to pull away once he has regathered his balance, but Kanna, with her typical stubbornness, doesn’t release him. “So,” she says after a moment. “You came back.”

“I did say that I would,” Pakku mutters. 

He doesn’t tell her that he very nearly didn’t. Doesn’t tell her that when Yugoda—who had come to Ba Sing Se to help treat the injured White Lotus members—had said that he was _finally_ well enough to travel, she had offered him a place on her boat when she went back to the North Pole. Doesn’t tell her how tempted he was to say _yes_ , how he almost had until the last possible moment, opting instead to travel back to the South on a ship the Earth King was sending with humanitarian workers to help rebuild the South.

He doesn’t tell Kanna any of this. In fact, he says nothing more at all once it becomes clear that she will not let go of his arm and insists on walking him back to his hut.

* * *

“Busy night?” Kanna asks as she thrusts a bowl of breakfast stew into Pakku’s hands. It’s become a ritual between them in the three months since he has returned that at least one morning a week she drags him from his hut to hers for breakfast. This way, she gets to see him, when he otherwise seems to be in the habit of sitting at home alone and avoiding her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he responds.

“Lying doesn’t suit you.” Kanna raises an eyebrow. “If you don’t want the whole village to know that you’re up in the middle of the night, I would suggest not howling like a polar bear wolf. Or at least doing so further away from the huts.”

Pakku doesn’t respond. 

“It was a full moon last night,” she probes.

“Indeed.”

“You thought you’d miraculously be able to bend again.”

“ _Bending_ is not the issue. I can still move the water.”

“You _know_ what I mean. The forms.”

The sea prunes in Pakku’s stew are suddenly extremely fascinating, such that he cannot seem to look at anything else other than them. 

Kanna continues: “If you’re going to stay up all night falling on your face at least twenty times, then—“

Pakku’s eyes snap to hers. “How did you know that?!”

“You mean other than those ubiquitous black-and-blue marks? Because I was _there_ , Pakku.”

“ _What_?! Why would you—”

“If you heard those noises, you would also want to ensure that one of your villagers wasn't dying a painful death.” She pauses. “These forms are not everything.”

“I’m a Waterbending Master,” he says, reaching for his cane in indignation, pushing himself off the ground, and turning his back to her as he slowly makes his way toward the door. “Yes, they are.”

* * *

He is sitting inside his hut, trying not to concentrate on the sounds of the young men outside—both Watertribesmen and those few Earth Kingdom relief workers who are still here—laboring, working hard, _building_ , when Kanna storms in without preamble, hands on her hips. “I want to get married.”

“Well,” says Pakku, eyes on his mat. “ _You_ want to marry _me_ , this is quite a change from the teenage girl who—”

“Don’t change the subject. Before you left for Ba Sing Se, you were the eager one. You said we’d get married when you returned, and yet you’ve been back now for almost sixth months and haven’t said a single word about it.”

“Haven’t I?”

“I’m not a fool, Pakku. I would appreciate not being treated like one.”

“I do not think that you’re a—”

“When are you planning on marrying me?”

“There is no rush.”

“Pakku, we are both almost eighty years old. Unless you want to honeymoon on our funeral boats, I suggest we get a move on.”

“Very well,” he says with a forced calmness, once again averting his gaze from hers. “I will marry you when I’ve remastered the forty-two Waterbending forms.”

“Oh, I see.” Kanna’s voice drips with irony. “Perfectly understandable. Waste the rest of our liv—”

“Don’t!” Pakku shouts, and this is the moment that if he could just _stand_ , he would burst up from where he sat and turn his whole body to face her. But he can’t, he _can’t_ , if he tried he would only look pathetic, so he sits and looks only slightly less so. “These forms are _everything_! Without them, I am _nothing_!”

Kanna’s eyebrows rise on her forehead. “I knew you were dramatic, but I did not realize you thought so little of yourself.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh? Enlighten me.”

“Outside right now, the men of your tribe are _rebuilding_. But I can do _nothing_ , Kanna! In the past, I could contribute by bending things into place, by teaching, by fighting if I had to. Even if I had lost my bending but could still _move_ …but as it stands, I can hardly _walk_ without assistance, and not at all without this damn cane, much less _build_ anything or _defend_ anyone! I am _useless_ to this Tribe! Like an elbow leech that takes up food and air and contributes _nothing_! And as for marrying you, how could I do that when I would not be able to protect—”

“ _Protect_?! You really haven’t changed at all, have you?!”

“What?”

“You think I need your protection? That that is why I want to marry you? Is it that hard for you to imagine that I—a woman—neither want nor need your protection, Pakku? That I want to marry you because I want to spend the rest of my life being close to you, and not because I want something _from_ you?!”

“I—”

“Would you like to know what I think? I think you feel _emasculated_ by the fact that when we walk together, you have to hold my arm and not the other way around! Because you can’t fight like you used to, and because you can’t carry things like boys a quarter of your age! You’re ashamed! That’s why you’ve been putting off marrying me, that’s why you hardly look me in the eye, and that’s why you almost didn’t come back at all in favor of running back to the North—yes, Yugoda wrote and told me!”

Kanna pauses for a breath, and Pakku blinks.

She continues: “Get over yourself, Pakku! You want to contribute to this Tribe? Go outside and talk to people! Inspire them! Do you know how many people here already see you as a hero—”

“Because of this damn leg? Because it is _not_ heroic—”

“Not because of your leg or your cane, you blubberhead! People could not care less about the fact that you got hurt liberating Ba Sing Se! People care about the fact that you _went_! They care about the fact that you left your cushy life in the North to come here to help rebuild after what the Fire Nation did to us, and that you inspired others to do the same! _That’s_ what makes you a hero in their eyes, Pakku; no one gives a penguin’s behind about your damn leg!”

For a moment, the only sound is her panting. Then, she turns her back on him and abruptly exits the hut, leaving Pakku staring and starting after her. 

* * *

Several hours later, he pushes himself up with his cane, straightens his back as much as he is able, and hobbles with a newfound sureness to the threshold of her hut. "Kanna.” 

“What do you want, Pakku.?”

“If I asked you now, would you still marry me?”

She turns to look at him. "Are you asking?" 

"Yes."

“If you've gotten it through your skull that all I want and need from you is your love and your companionship, _yes._ ”

* * *

Two weeks later, they are married under a full moon. As they turn from the wedding canopy and walk together, Pakku grips Kanna’s arm to keep himself upright and stable, and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know. This isn't compliant with the _North and South_ comics. But I figured it was compliant with the canon of the show, and only slightly moves away from the comics canon, and that that was enough to consider it canon compliant.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! I love comments!


End file.
